The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz

I have been quite the book bunny lately. I have made one too many stops to Barnes and Noble over the last three months and I still have a lot of reading to get through. Out of all the books I have purchased, there was one that caught my eye to read first…

THE AUTHOR

I recently finished The Mastery of Love by one of my now favorite authors, Don Miguel Ruiz. I like to think of Ruiz as a writer of the “New Age” way of thinking. In his writing, he focuses on the Toltec traditions which are fueled by happiness, freedom, and love. The Toltecs are known as “men and woman of knowledge”, in which the knowledge stems from the same unity of truth that is taught in other cultural traditions all over the world. Ruiz has a way of portraying these traditions in a way that you can understand, as well as emerge yourself with the teachings. I believe he is an influential writer that allows you to find awareness within his words, as well as a better understanding of the love you have for yourself and how to utilize it in your life.

THE MASTERY OF LOVE

Love is a fully integrated part of our lives. A love for our family, a love for our significant others, a love for ourselves, goals, and ambitions. Love is what drives our successes. What we often forget is that in order to have a successful relationship with the people around you, you must first understand the love you have for yourself, before it can even truly exist.

Table of Contents –

1: The Wounded Mind

This chapter discusses the belief that we are all masters of our own lives, in which the “wounded mind” is a direct reflection of our own doing.

We have the power to create our “dream” (our life), and it is because of that power that whatever we believe… truth lies within that belief. You are the way you are because you believe it to be true. We allow ourselves the ability to attract what we give and what we receive. It all comes down to routine and the way we think along with how we perceive ourselves, others and life around us. It truly makes you think from a different perspective at how even through our adulthood, the experiences and people we come in contact with, even ourselves, become a part of our conditioning as people, and can either make us better as individuals or worse.

2: The Loss of Innocence

When our lives begin, we are innocent.

This chapter discusses that our innocence is taken from us through the conditioning of domestication, fear, judgement, and punishment that is created from the world around us. We develop parasites within our minds. We are programmed to always be right and make everyone else wrong, and to believe in an image of perfection that doesn’t exist.

Perfection doesn’t exist. Happiness does not exist. They can only exist if you create it.

3: The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Love

This was quite the chapter…

Ruiz portrays the message of this chapter through a story about a man who didn’t believe that love existed, until he met a woman who changed his world. The most important thing was that they did not need each other. It was only when he decided to put his happiness in her hands… that the love between them died. The moral of this chapter is you cannot rely on someone else to make you happy.

Love will only exist when you take responsibility for yourself, and not base your happiness on your partner.

4: The Track of Love, The Track of Fear

“You live in a fantasy where everything you know about yourself is only true for you.” – Don Miguel Ruiz

This chapter discusses that no matter how many relationships you have (family, friends, etc), the relationship only exists between two people. Say for instance you have a group of close friends… Your relationship between those friends only exist when it is you and one of them together. The key importance in this writing, is that even with your family members, they will never fully understand and know who you are, as you will never know them in their entirety.

Love has no obligations. Obligations only exist within fear. The track of fear, and how Ruiz explained it was key in the biggest issue people face. He simply states that whatever you do, you do because you feel like you have to do it, and you expect the people around you to do the same, because they have to. It creates the obligation, which in the end, you wind up suffering.

The track of love has no obligations, meaning that whatever you do, you do because you want to do it. Love has no expectations. Which do you follow?

5: The Perfect Relationship

We all seek that perfect relationship. This again is focused on the idea that perfection exists. Perfection doesn’t exist. A relationship can only exist when two people let go of the need to control and change the other. You must accept the other person and take only responsibility for your own actions and well-being.

6: The Magical Kitchen

The magical kitchen is a place where there is unlimited amounts of food. This is used in comparison to the love you must have for yourself. It should be unlimited. The twist to this story is that a man approaches the woman with the magical kitchen and says he would give her unlimited food, as long as she did what he wanted her to do. Sound familiar? We often get confused at the true meaning of love and we abuse it for our own benefit.

7: The Dream Master

You are the master of your reality; your “dream”. If you want your life to be wonderful as well as your relationships, they can be… but it starts with you. Ruiz states that it is about the courage to speak the truth along with acting with truth, but most importantly, being honest with yourself. It is about accepting what you believe you deserve in your life along with the people you associate yourself around. If you want your wounds healed, you must be the one that takes action. No one knows you better than yourself, and no one can heal your wounds. but you.

8: Sex: The Biggest Demon in Hell

Ruiz discusses that we are all sexual beings. It is in our DNA. He states that the problem is not with sex, but the way something so natural to who we are, has been condemned; manipulated by our own judgements, when there is nothing to justify or judge. Sex is sex and it will always be just sex.

It is about finding the middle ground between the body and the mind… and I will leave it at that.

9: The Divine Huntress

The way this chapter was written was extraordinary! Ruiz used two individuals from greek mythology to use as examples in a common issue we face in todays time. You will often here about the “game” when dealing with matters of the heart and relationships. The game exists by our parasites need to control. It wants to win. What we often don’t realize is by focusing on the need to win, we lose sight of ourselves, and what is really important.

10: Seeing With Eyes of Love

This is a powerful chapter. Self-love is difficult when you are use to self-destruction. We are so critical about ourselves that we are the main cause of destroying our “dream”. Ruiz talks about the importance of loving your appearance, your flaws, and much more.

11: Healing the Emotional Body

In order to heal wounds, they must be open; To clean until they disappear. In order to clean the wound, your intentions must be pure; they must be true. The truth heals. It is also about forgiving yourself for things that are out of your control.

What also heals is stop believing the lies your “parasite” (your mind) creates, and what it has made you believe before this point of awareness. This is when you will experience the mastery of love.

I recommend The Mastery of Love because there is so much information and wisdom in the reading, that I could not even begin to portray it in this review. It is a fairly simple read as long as you open your mind to the words. Please note that this is not a sponsored post. The opinions are strictly my own and I wrote this review because I believe in the book and its messages. I do, however, have an affiliate link if you would like to purchase the book from Amazon. Let me know in the comments your thoughts on the book if you have read it or if you intend to read it! If so, what from my review helped your decision? I plan to do more book reviews soon so the more feedback the better! Thank you for reading!